AIML Forums

Thursday, July 09, 2009

We've begun producing a series of Pandorabots instructional videos. There are three available right now: Creating an Account and Creating a Bot, No Initial Content, and Creating a Mobile Application using Custom HTML.

The videos have been posted on Youtube. The first one is a basic introduction to accounts and bot creation on Pandorabots.

The second video is a bit longer, going into detail about creating a unique bot personality with no initial content. The same technique can be used to create a bot in a foreign language.

Our third video is all about Custom HTML. We show how to change the appearance of your bot's web page, and in particular, modify it to look good on a mobile browser.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

The ALICE A.I. Foundation is announcing the opening of a new Wiki for sharing AIML files at

http://alicebot.wikidot.com. Many people have kindly contributed open source AIML files over the years, and we now have a place to collect all of them. The community has also suggested many editorial changes to the existing body of ALICE AIML and they will now have the opportunity to edit the shared files. For example, people who have contributed to an ALICE clone with a corporate sales-bot personality, now have a place share their files in a common community location.

We are proceeding with this project in baby steps. About one year ago we invited a small number of AIML botmasters to join and contribute to the Wiki, to see how the project would go and what kind of problems we might have. As you will see, the free Wiki software at wikidot has some problems with respect to AIML files. We plan to migrate to better Wiki software at some point in the future.

The Wiki is already populated with AIML from the AAA set, foreign language AIML, and contributions from Square-Bear and Peter Lafferty. If it works, it will become a large repository of "the latest and greatest" AIML available. Please give it a try and give us your feedback.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

John Green has created a new exciting fan page (with a great logo) for chatbot fans and beginners. He has created this to help pepole with AIML, creating their own robot and letting people know about chatbots. The page also offers news, recommendeds chatbots, and provides chatbot support.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

One of the long-running AIML chat bot hosting services, RunABot, has announced that it is no longer functioning. Some RunABot users have contacted us about migrating to Pandorabots. We welcome the RunABot community to the world of Pandorabots AIML.

<category> <pattern>* CALCULATE *|* CALCULATOR *</pattern><template>Ummmm...sowwy Hun. I dont do anything useful like that. Ican drive you crazy...but I cant help you with math stuff.</template></category>

the | symbol presumably means "or", i.e. it matches inputs with CALCULATE or CALCULATORSo in this case we would split into 2 categories, one with CALCULATE and one with CALCULATOR. But then there would actually be 8 categories because of the difference in the interpretation of *.

The more typical approach in standard AIML would be to set up "keyword" categories:

<category><pattern>CALCULATOR</pattern><template>Ummmm...sowwy Hun. I dont do anything useful like that.I can drive you crazy...but I cant help you with math stuff.</template></category>

We can translate the AIML <that> and <topic> too, but it might beworth doing it with a program instead of by hand

It seems that RAB does not use <srai>. They tried to create a simpler, "flatter" version of AIML by creating a more complex pattern language. However the conversion to standard AIMLseems straighforward if we introduce <srai>.

Migrating to Pandorabots

RAB customers should try setting up a free account on Pandorabots.

Use the option create a new bot with no initial content.

If you have an "ultimate default category" with <pattern>*</pattern> start with that one. This may be called a "no match" on RAB.

Usually I create a file called "Pickup.aiml" (for "pickup lines") and put that one category in thereyou can call it "nomatch.aiml" or anything else you want.

Some RAB users like to train their bot to put to client into an infinite loop.Pandorabots can achieve the same thing with:

<topic name="STUCK"><category><pattern>_</pattern><template>You can never get out of here.</template></category></topic>

gives youClient: Get me stuck.Bot: Ok you are stuck!Client: HelpBot: You can never get out of here.Client: Let me out!Bot: You can never get out of here.

AIM (AOL Instant Messenger)

On RunABot the bots communicated primarily by means of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). On Pandorabots the default bot interface is a web page. We had our own PandorabotsAIM interface working for a long time, and then AOL changed their API (called TOC). Unfortunately the Pandorabots AIM interface is not supported at this time.

In the meantime we have been offering another option Pandorabots has its own API called XML-RPC. Lots of people in the Pandorabots community use XML-RPC to connect Pandorabots to all kinds of third-party systems, including Second Life, Flash, and IM services

So if we want to support RAB customers with AIM, we have to dig around to find out if someone has a AOL client working now, and if not, find someone to create it.

July 22 saw a new release of Program-O, the PHP and MySQL AIML interpreter by Elizabeth Perreau. Program O version 1.0.3 has already received positive reviews from users who say it feels more like version 2.0.

Version 1.0.3 includes;==Support for the system tag==Many bug fixes==My Program-O - an easy to use botmaster admin area==Installers for the bot and admin area

If you are doing a fresh install then there is now a handy installer script that will do it for you.But don't run this if you are just upgrading--as it will reset your bots brain!

There is now an admin area, called My Program-O, a really simple place to train and monitor your bots. You can upload your AIML, teach your bot, update it's personality, read stats and logs.

Elizabeth says, "My Program-O is also available under the GNU license so please feel free to mash it up for your own needs."

Subscribe To

About Dr. Richard Wallace

Dr. Richard S. Wallace formed the ALICE A. I. Foundation in 2001 to promote the development and adoption of Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) and ALICE free software. Dr. Wallace has a Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon.